Karpel Tunnel wrote:Look at you, repeating it yet again. You are so confused that you think repeating your position is a response that fits ANY POSSIBLE REACTION TO YOU or any thread or anything anyone says. It's like if someone says you forgot to buy milk and you think that talking for the millionth time about nested Russian dolls is a response to that.

And look at you, reacting to my reaction as though your reaction is clearly the more appropriate one.

Well, given whatever it is that you are actually trying to convey here. Buying milk? Russian dolls? How on earth does that factor into an assesment of empathy relating to all of the many conflicting assessments of homosexuality as either moral or immoral behavior?

Karpel Tunnel wrote:1) I know your positions on all this 2) thus it is superfluous to my reaction to your reaction.3) and it is a category errror, yet again here.

Again, imagine taking this sort of "argument" to a demonstration in which some champion homosexuality while others condemn it. From my frame of mind, it's less a question of what someone's "position" is on same-sex relationships, and more the extent to which their value judgments are largely existential contraptions rather that reasoned asssessments.

Karpel Tunnel wrote:Let's up the ante with a harsher example. I am walking down the street and see you push an old lady to the ground. I run up and hear you explaining to her that her outrage is [fill in the blank with Iamb's contraptions, dasein, etc.and that for you it is important to find out how one ought to live] I realize you are some kind of nihilist and one seeking to find objective morality. I express my feelings about seeing you push some old lady to the ground for not getting out of your way fast enough. I have heard this person, you, say that you are trying to find out how you ought to live. So I hold a mirror up and say what I just saw happen.

No, my frame of mind revolves more around grappling with the context. Why did I push the lady to the ground? What were my reasons? How was I able to rationalize/justify doing it?

Sure, I could simply argue that in an essentially meaningless No God world anything I choose to do can be rationalized. Why? Because I wanted to do it. For whatever reason.

But the crowd gathering around me will assess my behavior from within the framework of dasein. Unless of course a philosopher among them is able to insist that my behavior universally wrong. Or, given an objective account of the context, wrong in this instance.

Okay, so how would this philosopher then go about demonstrating this such that all rational and virtuous men and women are obligated to share this frame of mind. Especially, given that we live in a world where even things like genocide can be rationalized.

Karpel Tunnel wrote:Does this mean that I think you were objectively immoral? No.

What it means is I think there is a chance, given your stated goal, that you yourself might realize that you also dislike your behavior. I disliked it. We are both social mammals or were born that way anyway. It is possible you might re-evaluate (and also that others might get something from the response, and then it was expressive)

Yeah, but how does the fact that others convincing me of this become any less than an exchange of existential contraption? Either it was wrong for me to push her or it was not. Others hear the reason that I did so and judge. But not as God is able to judge, only as mere mortals are. Then it comes down to the extent to which you are convinced this is something for philosophers/ethicists to decide; or instead that each of us as indivuals in a No God world are going to react subjectively/subjunctively as mere mortals. Then it comes down to noting those behaviors in which an increasingly larger percentage of the population share the same assessment. Raping and killing children for example. That's wrong.

But: In a No God world, is it necessarily wrong? And here our emotional reactions can just muddy up the water all that more. We become incensed in reacting to particular things but, again, are others obligated to feel that same sense of outrage.

Then an attempt on your part to "probe" my motivation and intention, while knowing almost nothing about the experiences, relationships and ideas that predisposed me to embody them:

Karpel Tunnel wrote:It is not a foregone conclusion, but a possibility that reacting to what you did in a simple emotional way, summing it up, might cut through a fog, and you might re-evaluate it. Might decide you don't really want to act like that.

I also consider it possible you are so depressed or afraid of death or whatever that you do not realize how you are behaving and in fact on some level you would prefer not to.

How close is this to the "truth"? Let's bring a team of the world's most renowned psychologists and see if they can figure it out.

See if they agree with you that I am only "rehashing" dasein irrelevantly here. And ever and always my arguments here are aimed more at those who embrace an objectivist moral and political agenda. Using whatever particular font that appeals to them.

Instead, we get this:

Karpel Tunnel wrote:I responded to someone who lacked empathy in a certain situation.

A response on your part that would make sense:

I don't care about him as a person. I just want my answer.

or

I have only one purpose here and people are at their own risk when they deal with me. If they find this unpleasant or rude, it is heir own fault.

And that settles it, right? Even though I articulated the ambiguities embedded in the manner in which I thought I was reacting to Pedro and Jack about homosexuality, your own assessment here is a better one. Or certainly a less "callous" one.

Besides, in a No God world what could possibly be more important than finding an argument that allows all of us to feel just the right amount of empathy about things like homosexually and abortion.

But, most of all, your reaction is simply better than mine. Let's at least agree on that?

That and the fact that while you truly do read and understand my points, I clearly do not read and understand yours. Then back to lecturing people in a burning building about Dasein and/or dasein.

Karpel Tunnel wrote:But your behavior and its effects are so not on the table that you cannot see anything as not part of your issue. It is inconceivable that you would be affected by someone pointing something out, so in fact I was trying to prove how one should live. You only see nails, as a hammer.

Here again we need to take this abstract assessment out into the world of actual conflicting goods. We can discuss my reaction to a particular set of behaiors and you can note precisely why I am guilty as charged here.

Karpel Tunnel wrote: And you deal with all human intereraction AS getting or not getting information that you want, their wants or goals do not exist.

No, I broach particular contexts in which individual wants and goals have come into conflict. I then explore the extent to which these conflicts are embodied or not embodied in the components of my own moral philosophy "here and now".

And, in particular, given that this is a philosophy forum, the extent to which the tools that philosophers have at their disposal either are or are not adequately up to the task of resolving these conflicts.

Karpel Tunnel wrote:People seeing others in just intrumental terms is increasing in society, and seeing themselves that way - re:social media. It is a good pattern to notice. Some people may not like it. For those who do not like being treated AS ONLY A MEANS TO AN END might benefit from having examples laid out. I would prefer a society that is less solipsistic, includes more empathy and does not have a purely instrumental view of self and others. So here I reacted to one example of that kind of stuff.

This takes us to what I construe to be the most wrenching component of human interactions in the world today: sociopathic and narcissistic personalities.

These, for example, include the "show me the money" moral nihilists that own and operate the global economy. It is ever and always their own wealth and power that sustains their own particular motivations and intentions.

The Trumps and the Putins for instance. Imagine discussing the components of our respective moral philosophies with them. And not "off in the clouds" either.

And then back once again to a reckoned to be astute psychological assessment of me:

Karpel Tunnel wrote:You are searching for how one ought to live. If you find that out, get your rules, you will still need to navigate responses other people have to your actions. No set of rules will cover all situations. And it would seem at least possible that empathy will be one of the guides. But since I do not believe there is objective morality, or perhaps I should say, despite the fact that I don't, I find it odd that someone is seeking how one ought to live but cannot even grasp that the way they interact with other people might be important, rather than just the solving of the question or not. Call me mad but it seems, even, ironic. I mean, I assume you can be kind and would help someone who fell down, call the police if you saw a rape outside your window. We are not talking about sociopathic behavior, but there seems to me to be a fundamental not much interest in the goals, wants, expression of people here. And yet this powerful drive to find out how you ought to live.

Note to others:

Should I just throw in the towel here? Is this as rational assessment of me as there is ever likely to be?

Despite the fact that all we really know about each other is embedded in our reaction to a bunch of posts here.

He was like a man who wanted to change all; and could not; so burned with his impotence; and had only me, an infinitely small microcosm to convert or detest. John Fowles

"Though the word 'fatalism' is commonly used to refer to an attitude of resignation in the face of some future event or events which are thought to be inevitable,

philosophers usually use the word to refer to the view that we are powerless to do anything other than what we actually do."

Perhaps there is a more positive word to use than *powerless*. Anyway, we are only really powerless unless we see things that way and feel no hope. But then again, psychologically speaking, maybe that experience of powerlessness is a gift and what lights the fire under us and gives us the momentum to make the choice to transcend it or plow through it ~ that is, if we want to experience personal freedom.

We can reasonably say that we had *no other choice* in the matter in view of what we saw and how we saw the future if we did not take steps to become pro-active and change something ~ in other words, to be self-determined creatures and re-create our reality. Is that being powerless?

"Though the word 'fatalism' is commonly used to refer to an attitude of resignation in the face of some future event or events which are thought to be inevitable,

philosophers usually use the word to refer to the view that we are powerless to do anything other than what we actually do."

Admittedly, I am never really quite sure how to react to this sort of thing.

Consider:

Once the parts of an automobile engine are put together correctly the car can be driven. No one will question the parts themselves. As mindless matter, they do what they do because that is what needs to be done with them in order for the car to be driven.

But what about the minds of the men and the women who invented the engine? the men and the women who assemble the invented parts into the engine? the men and the women who choose to drive the car to point A rather than point B?

How is this matter different from the matter in the parts of the engine? Given that it is said that all of the matter that make up all of the elements in the universe came from exploding stars billions of years ago.

But: How it came to evolve into living matter, into mindful matter, is still the big mystery. The whole conundrum embedded in "dualism".

Thus to ask what we all ought to do [on this thread] is still entangled in turn in the extent to which what we choose to do either is or is not only that which we ever could have chosen to do.

But what does that really mean when discussing matter able to become mindful of itself as matter able to discuss something like this?

If we are "powerless to do anything other than what we actually do" than how are we not just the "parts" that nature managed to assemble into brains much the same way in which our brains assemble the parts of the enigine?

Here I always come back to dreams. In my dreams -- "in the moment" -- I am convinced that I am choosing to do what I do. But instead it is my subconscious and unconscious mind -- the chemical and neurological interactions in my brain -- that is/are calling the shots. But only as they ever could have; as, in other words, just a more extraordinary manifestation of matter.

We simply do not know what is really going on here. Or, rather, I don't. Others might. God might. But until I am apprised of how it really works, I don't.

Arcturus Descending wrote: Perhaps there is a more positive word to use than *powerless*. Anyway, we are only really powerless unless we see things that way and feel no hope. But then again, psychologically speaking, maybe that experience of powerlessness is a gift and what lights the fire under us and gives us the momentum to make the choice to transcend it or plow through it ~ that is, if we want to experience personal freedom.

We can reasonably say that we had *no other choice* in the matter in view of what we saw and how we saw the future if we did not take steps to become pro-active and change something ~ in other words, to be self-determined creatures and re-create our reality. Is that being powerless?

Perhaps. But that still leaves me unable to determine definitively if what you write here and what I read here is only ever as it was all going to unfold anyway. Whether we feel powerful or powerless is the same thing: an inherent manifestation of the immutable [mechanical] laws of matter doing the immutable [mechanical] laws of matter's thing.

Those are just the few who popped into my mind. History is full of reminders of how we do not have to be powerless.

In a wholly determined universe however everything that everyone thinks, feels and does is only as it ever could have been. Going all the way back to why there is something instead of nothing; and why it is this something and not another something altogether.

Or so it seems to me.

But: Whatever that means.

He was like a man who wanted to change all; and could not; so burned with his impotence; and had only me, an infinitely small microcosm to convert or detest. John Fowles

Well, there is an exchange between two of the characters in the film that captures the frame of mind I was trying to convey above with regard to "I" as an existential contraption...

...out in the "what all men ought to do world" that we actually interact in.

In other words, the manner in which your sense of self here is basically an accummulation of all the variables in your life strung together into a ceaselessly fabricated and rebrabicated narrative out of which you make sense of the world in a moral and political predisposition.

Ann: I just wanna ask a few questions, like why do you tape women talkin' about sex? Why do you do that? Can you tell me why? Graham: I don't find turning the tables very interesting. Ann: Well, I do. Tell me why, Graham. Graham: Why? What? What? What do you want me to tell you? Why? Ann, you don't even know who I am. You don't have the slightest idea who I am. Am I supposed to recount all the points in my life leading up to this moment and just hope that it's coherent, that it makes some sort of sense to you? It doesn't make any sense to me. You know, I was there. I don't have the slightest idea why I am who I am, and I'm supposed to be able to explain it to you?

Of course in the film it all reconfigures into a happy ending. The young and beautiful Ann and the young and beautiful Graham are together. The shitty sex, lies and videotapes are a thing of the past.

Well, for however long that will last.

Our own lives however may or may not come even close to this particular trajectory. There are, after all, countless actual historical, cultural and experiential contexts that any particular individuals might find themselves in.

Thank goodness there are Gods and political ideologies and Kantian intellectual contraptions and asssessments of nature able to steer some down the one and the only path that all virtuous men and women are obligated to take.

He was like a man who wanted to change all; and could not; so burned with his impotence; and had only me, an infinitely small microcosm to convert or detest. John Fowles

Well, there is an exchange between two of the characters in the film that captures the frame of mind I was trying to convey above with regard to "I" as an existential contraption...

...out in the "what all men ought to do world" that we actually interact in.

In other words, the manner in which your sense of self here is basically an accummulation of all the variables in your life strung together into a ceaselessly fabricated and rebrabicated narrative out of which you make sense of the world in a moral and political predisposition.

Ann: I just wanna ask a few questions, like why do you tape women talkin' about sex? Why do you do that? Can you tell me why? Graham: I don't find turning the tables very interesting. Ann: Well, I do. Tell me why, Graham. Graham: Why? What? What? What do you want me to tell you? Why? Ann, you don't even know who I am. You don't have the slightest idea who I am. Am I supposed to recount all the points in my life leading up to this moment and just hope that it's coherent, that it makes some sort of sense to you? It doesn't make any sense to me. You know, I was there. I don't have the slightest idea why I am who I am, and I'm supposed to be able to explain it to you?

Of course in the film it all reconfigures into a happy ending. The young and beautiful Ann and the young and beautiful Graham are together. The shitty sex, lies and videotapes are a thing of the past.

Well, for however long that will last.

Our own lives however may or may not come even close to this particular trajectory. There are, after all, countless actual historical, cultural and experiential contexts that any particular individuals might find themselves in.

Thank goodness there are Gods and political ideologies and Kantian intellectual contraptions and asssessments of nature able to steer some down the one and the only path that all virtuous men and women are obligated to take.

Thus to ask what we all ought to do [on this thread] is still entangled in turn in the extent to which what we choose to do either is or is not only that which we ever could have chosen to do.

This reminds me so much of the God question: Is there or is there not? Some of us choose to *believe* what we have been taught, some of us go to the other extreme and become atheists, some of us choose to believe in a designing God but not necessarily a personal one based on their own experience, and still others make the decision that it is OK not to know either way since to them it is an unknowable thing. For the most part, they have no problem living in ambiguity.

What is the worst thing that could happen to you, Iambiguous, if you were to spend the rest of your life trying to resolve the above?

Thus to ask what we all ought to do [on this thread] is still entangled in turn in the extent to which what we choose to do either is or is not only that which we ever could have chosen to do.

What is more important to you? Resolving the above which I do not really see an answer for except by taking a leap into the darkness and choosing one or the other based on how we choose to see ourselves and the world around us ~~ since we cannot ever really be certain ~~ it is just like the God thingy. We can also decide to take the way of the agnostic and realize that perhaps in the final analysis it does not matter.

We either see ourselves as making our own choices, being self-determined, being free or striving for freedom (even though perhaps our sub-conscious is there at work which is also a part of us and working with us). We know this. We can also see ourselves as being shackled. Which do we want to *see*? We can continue to allow that *ghost* to haunt us. Sometimes it is a good idea to face the ghost and ask why It is still there in the first place. That may be a deeper question than the one being asked.

The world is full of ambiguity. What does matter is answering the question for one's self": How ought I or how do I live? Are we supposed to ask that question of others regarding ourselves?

Do you ever find or sense that struggling with this question may be keeping you from asking yourself fresh new questions which can lead you to knowing, individually-speaking, "how ought I to live" or "where am I going"?

“How can a bird that is born for joySit in a cage and sing?” ― William Blake

iambiguous wrote:Our own lives however may or may not come even close to this particular trajectory. There are, after all, countless actual historical, cultural and experiential contexts that any particular individuals might find themselves in.

Thank goodness there are Gods and political ideologies and Kantian intellectual contraptions and asssessments of nature able to steer some down the one and the only path that all virtuous men and women are obligated to take.

Okay, so now we know (as if we didn't already know).

So what do you want?

What do you expect?

Only what I have been pointing out over and over and over again now for years: In reacting to someone who videotapes women talking about sex, how do we distinguish between our own personal reactions [rooted in dasein and conflicted narratives regarding human sexuality] and the reactions of others?

Is there a reaction that comes closest to how reasonable and virtuous men and women ought to react? Or are our reactions instead largely embedded in particular historical, cultural and experiential contexts?

Is there a "real me" here able to encompass the "right thing to do"?

And this discussion is important because one way or another any particular community is going to enact laws that prescribe or proscribe particular behaviors here.

And our behaviors will then be judged by others and rewards and punishments will follow.

And then for some it goes beyond that. For them religion comes into played. Graham's behavior will also be judged by God.

Now, we obviously react to the interaction of these variables in different ways. My "I" here is more fractured and fragmented than yours. "I" am less able to ground myself in a frame of mind that offers at least some measure of comfort and consolation.

But, again, given the gap [no doubt] between my existential trajectory and yours, how successful will we ever be in closing it? All I can do here is note my own trajectory [as I do re my reaction to abortion] and then react to the manner in which others relate their own to me.

But: Communication here is always going to be far more problematic than communication exchanged regarding relationships in the either/or world.

He was like a man who wanted to change all; and could not; so burned with his impotence; and had only me, an infinitely small microcosm to convert or detest. John Fowles

Thus to ask what we all ought to do [on this thread] is still entangled in turn in the extent to which what we choose to do either is or is not only that which we ever could have chosen to do.

This reminds me so much of the God question: Is there or is there not? Some of us choose to *believe* what we have been taught, some of us go to the other extreme and become atheists, some of us choose to believe in a designing God but not necessarily a personal one based on their own experience, and still others make the decision that it is OK not to know either way since to them it is an unknowable thing. For the most part, they have no problem living in ambiguity.

Of course God just adds another layer of complexity here. If God is said to be omniscient then He knows everything. So that must include knowing what each of us as individuals think we know about Him. So how could we not know only what He already knows that we will know?

Arcturus Descending wrote: What is the worst thing that could happen to you, Iambiguous, if you were to spend the rest of your life trying to resolve the above?

As my ex-wife once pointed out, to the extent that you spend your life pondering seemingly unanswerable questions like this, is the extent that you are not out in the world actually living your life. But here [once again] dasein kicks in. For any number of personal reasons each of us become more or less drawn to philosophy. And then for others their options become more and more depleted. They are less able to "actually live their life" out in the world with others. They sink down into themselves where questions of this sort are more likely to percolate.

Thus to ask what we all ought to do [on this thread] is still entangled in turn in the extent to which what we choose to do either is or is not only that which we ever could have chosen to do.

Arcturus Descending wrote:What is more important to you? Resolving the above which I do not really see an answer for except by taking a leap into the darkness and choosing one or the other based on how we choose to see ourselves and the world around us ~~ since we cannot ever really be certain ~~ it is just like the God thingy. We can also decide to take the way of the agnostic and realize that perhaps in the final analysis it does not matter.

Here "I" -- my "I" -- quickly becomes embedded in the thick fog that surrounds any attempts to really understand your own motivations and intentions. You can only remember so much about the past, and there are so many variables either beyond your understanding or control in the present, it's like aiming a dart at the bullseyes and being lucky if you are even able to hit the board.

It's a wild ass guess in other words. Even the most introspective among us are sure to leave many, many of the most important parts out. Or, as they say, we are so entangled in our own point of point that we lack the objectivity that others are able bring to bear.

Arcturus Descending wrote: We either see ourselves as making our own choices, being self-determined, being free or striving for freedom (even though perhaps our sub-conscious is there at work which is also a part of us and working with us). We know this.

But how we see ourselves in a wholly determined universe is only as we were ever going to see oursleves. If human consciousness [on or below the surface] is just more matter, then it will do only what matter does if in fact there are "immutable laws" of matter.

Back to dreams...

Last night I dreamed I went to the mailbox in a house I once lived in many years ago. I pulled out the mail and there was a letter from my wife. I was reading the letter. It was about our daughter.

Then when I woke up the whole "incident" just blew my fucking mind! How could my brain manufacture this letter "in my head" such that "in the moment" the "I" in the dream was reading it?!!

In other words, as though it had not been a dream at all. "In the moment" in the dream I was the man reading the letter. How is that even possible?

Arcturus Descending wrote: The world is full of ambiguity. What does matter is answering the question for one's self": How ought I or how do I live? Are we supposed to ask that question of others regarding ourselves?

The world is filled with no ambiguity at all if what we think of as ambiguity [in this exchange] is only ever as it was ever going to be thought of.

But how do we wrap our heads around that when intuitively we seem so certain that a real me is calling the shots?

Arcturus Descending wrote: Do you ever find or sense that struggling with this question may be keeping you from asking yourself fresh new questions which can lead you to knowing, individually-speaking, "how ought I to live" or "where am I going"?

Sure, but how am I ever going to come to grips with why I do the things that I do. Besides, these questions have always fascinated me going back to my uncle introducing me to science fiction. And I sure as shit wouldn't pursue them if they did not [still] fascinate me to no end.

He was like a man who wanted to change all; and could not; so burned with his impotence; and had only me, an infinitely small microcosm to convert or detest. John Fowles

Only what I have been pointing out over and over and over again now for years: In reacting to someone who videotapes women talking about sex, how do we distinguish between our own personal reactions [rooted in dasein and conflicted narratives regarding human sexuality] and the reactions of others?

Is there a reaction that comes closest to how reasonable and virtuous men and women ought to react? Or are our reactions instead largely embedded in particular historical, cultural and experiential contexts?

Is there a "real me" here able to encompass the "right thing to do"?

If someone answers these questions, then the answers are existential contraptions. Correct?

Then what is the purpose in asking the questions?

You know the answers. Right?

And this discussion is important because one way or another any particular community is going to enact laws that prescribe or proscribe particular behaviors here.

And our behaviors will then be judged by others and rewards and punishments will follow.

Then that community will enact laws which are rooted in dasein.

What's wrong with that? What's right with that? So what?

Now, we obviously react to the interaction of these variables in different ways. My "I" here is more fractured and fragmented than yours. "I" am less able to ground myself in a frame of mind that offers at least some measure of comfort and consolation.

(Our object of desire isn't to change current belief systems or complicate already convoluted streams of information; we're not trying to even prove ourselves in anyway. We're just human beings similar to yourself. Not superior, the same. Ancestors of the lost world. The conflicts of beliefs you face in your world, are not only the conflict of self yet life, we cannot compel such conflicts to other's will for any self-benefit. The true goal reached here is there is nothing we can say nor do that can convince anyone else of what they don't know for themselves already. And, when the time calls, and you are ready, the barriers of awareness will expand and such confirmed information will be easily perceived, and known to them! Allow them to seek and find out when they are prepared. All will arrive to light in no time.) Ego sum via veritas et vita;Amesha Spenta;Vohu Mano; Allow all things measurable, microbial and astronomical to remain infinite, unchanged and arrive to light.

Only what I have been pointing out over and over and over again now for years: In reacting to someone who videotapes women talking about sex, how do we distinguish between our own personal reactions [rooted in dasein and conflicted narratives regarding human sexuality] and the reactions of others?

Is there a reaction that comes closest to how reasonable and virtuous men and women ought to react? Or are our reactions instead largely embedded in particular historical, cultural and experiential contexts?

Is there a "real me" here able to encompass the "right thing to do"?

If someone answers these questions, then the answers are existential contraptions. Correct?

Yes, in relation to the reactions of others. In a No God world.

After all, in a God world there exists a transcending truth that mere mortals can turn to in Scripture.

On the other hand, suppose [in a No God world] someone was actually able to construct an argument about Graham making videotapes of women talking about sex. An argument such that she could demonstrate that in fact all rational men and women were obligated to share it.

In regard to human sexuality, different individuals may have had many different experiences precipitating many different moral narratives; but now there is an argument that is not just a subjective/subjunctive point of view. Now we can know for sure if what we think about Graham is in sync with what one ought to think if they wish to be thought of as a rational human being.

phyllo wrote: Then what is the purpose in asking the questions?

You know the answers. Right?

I suspect that my answers "here and now" are rooted in dasein confronting conflicting goods out in a particular world such that political power will determine which set of behaviors will actually be enflorced in any given community.

But that answer is no less an existential contraption. I would never argue that it is the answer. Unless of course someone is able to persuade me that in fact their answer is the answer.

But even then we would have to come up with a methodology enabling us to demonstrate that this is so for all others.

And this discussion is important because one way or another any particular community is going to enact laws that prescribe or proscribe particular behaviors here.

And our behaviors will then be judged by others and rewards and punishments will follow.

phyllo wrote: Then that community will enact laws which are rooted in dasein.

What's wrong with that? What's right with that? So what?

So what?! For the life of me I am unable to grasp how on earth you [or anyone] can ask that.

Communities will reward or punish particular behaviors. And in communities that revolve around one or another objectivist font [religion: Christianity/Islam etc.; ideology: Communism/fascism etc.] the behaviors that you choose carry consequences.

Why one set of behaviors rather than another? And if it is seen as reasonable that morality is largely an existential contraption rooted in dasein then it might seem more reasonable [to some of us] that "moderation, negotiation and compromise" reflects the best of all posible governing agendas.

Now, we obviously react to the interaction of these variables in different ways. My "I" here is more fractured and fragmented than yours. "I" am less able to ground myself in a frame of mind that offers at least some measure of comfort and consolation.

phyllo wrote: Should I be uncomfortable? Why?

My point here [more or less] is this: To the extent to which you are able to tug me in the direction of your frame of mind, I will be more comfortable. And to the extent to which I am able to tug you in the direction of mine, you will feel less comfortable.

Then it's just a matter of how this all actually plays out "for all practical purposes" into the future.

Last edited by iambiguous on Sun Sep 16, 2018 11:05 pm, edited 1 time in total.

He was like a man who wanted to change all; and could not; so burned with his impotence; and had only me, an infinitely small microcosm to convert or detest. John Fowles

On the other hand, suppose [in a No God world] someone was actually able to construct an argument about Graham making videotapes of women talking about sex. An argument such that she could demonstrate that in fact all rational men and women were obligated to share it.

You have constructed your philosophy in a way which makes such an argument impossible. You have left no opening to let it in.

But even then we would have to come up with a methodology enabling us to demonstrate that this is so for all others.

Same problem here. Your philosophy rejects all methodologies.

Communities will reward or punish particular behaviors. And in communities that revolve around one or another objectivist font [religion: Christianity/Islam etc.; ideology: Communism/fascism etc.] the behaviors that you choose carry consequences.

Why one set of behaviors rather than another? And if it is seen as reasonable that morality is largely an existential contraption rooted in dasein then it might seem more reasonable [to some of us] that "moderation, negotiation and compromise" reflects the best of all posible governing agendas.

That sounds like moderation is objectively good, negotiation is objectively good, and compromise is objectively good.

But you can't mean that because it contradicts your moral nihilism.

No compromise ... no negotiation ... extreme/violent opposition to fascism, communism, Christianity or Islam are just as reasonable for a moral nihilist. And reasonable in a world based on dasein.

On the other hand, suppose [in a No God world] someone was actually able to construct an argument about Graham making videotapes of women talking about sex. An argument such that she could demonstrate that in fact all rational men and women were obligated to share it.

You have constructed your philosophy in a way which makes such an argument impossible. You have left no opening to let it in.

My philosophy is based on the assumption that in a No God world, Graham was predisposed to behave as he did based largely on an accumulation of a particular set of experiences, relationships and access to information/knowledge.

Others however are embedded existentially in an entirely different set of variables. So they react to Graham taping women talking about sex in entirely different ways.

Now, sure, its possible that the problem here is entirely me. Arguments made by the Platonists, the Kantians and all the other philosohers who have grappled with how mere mortals ought to behave in the world, may have succeeded in pinning this all down "deontologically", "essentially", "objectively". With or without God.

But I won't admit it. Or I am unable to admit it because I am unable to grasp it.

But let's hear these arguments. All of us can then judge for ourselves the extent to which Graham either ought or ought not to have made those tapes.

Their methodology will either succeed in demonstrating this or it won't. In much the same manner it can be demonstrated that in fact Graham either did or did not make the videos themselves.

In other words, in the either/or world, we are often able to demonstrate that this happened rather than that. So, why, after thousands of years, are philosophers still no where near to being able to pin down any number of human behaviors as either moral or immoral?

I've got my reasons. But they are no less conjectures based on a particular set of assumptions.

Communities will reward or punish particular behaviors. And in communities that revolve around one or another objectivist font [religion: Christianity/Islam etc.; ideology: Communism/fascism etc.] the behaviors that you choose carry consequences.

Why one set of behaviors rather than another? And if it is seen as reasonable that morality is largely an existential contraption rooted in dasein then it might seem more reasonable [to some of us] that "moderation, negotiation and compromise" reflects the best of all posible governing agendas.

phyllo wrote: That sounds like moderation is objectively good, negotiation is objectively good, and compromise is objectively good.

But you can't mean that because it contradicts your moral nihilism.

They are construed by me to be good only because I have not come upon an argument of late that persuades me that an essential/objective good does in fact exist. It always revolves around what I think I know about human morality in a No God world. Here and now.

However: Convince me that what I think I know should instead be what you think you know; and I'm sure I'll feel less fractured and fragmented than I am now.

All you are basically arguing here [from my frame of mind] is that this is bullshit. I am determined to reject all arguments from others that do not align themselves with my own set of assumptions. And even though my own frame of mind here does leave me fractured and fragmented [with little or no comfort and consolation and oblivion right around the corner] it's all about me and my own psychological bent here.

It's all about me and my willful obstinance. My need to defend moral nihilism even if it does make me feel broken, beaten and battered.

phyllo wrote: No compromise ... no negotiation ... extreme/violent opposition to fascism, communism, Christianity or Islam are just as reasonable for a moral nihilist. And reasonable in a world based on dasein.

So why aren't you saying that??

All I can do is to come back to this:

1] Here and now someone thinks they know that some particular behavior is rational/virtuous "inside their head"2] Here and now someone thinks they know that this is not just based on the components of my own argument above3] Here and now someone feels confident instead they can demonstrate why all rational/virtuous men and women ought to think the same

About Communism or abortion or any other set of conflicting goods.

Then around and around and around we'll go.

But: this is something that I would expect to be the case in a No God world. In other words, given the manner in which I construe the actual existential interaction of the components of my own moral philosophy: nihilism.

Out in a particular context, out in a particular world.

He was like a man who wanted to change all; and could not; so burned with his impotence; and had only me, an infinitely small microcosm to convert or detest. John Fowles

Every argument that you hear will fall into the category of "existential contraption". You're philosophy defines it that way.

Thus the futility of repeatedly asking people for an argument.

What are the characteristics of a "non-contraption"?

What is a "demonstration"?

Think about that.

All you are basically arguing here [from my frame of mind] is that this is bullshit.

All I'm basically arguing is that what you call "more reasonable" is in fact not "more reasonable" than something else within the context of nihilism. It's just that one thing makes you feel better than something else. Why call it "reasonable"?

You can't even figure out what is reasonable or rational beyond some personal tastes and preferences. Right?

phyllo wrote: That sounds like moderation is objectively good, negotiation is objectively good, and compromise is objectively good.

But you can't mean that because it contradicts your moral nihilism.

They are construed by me to be good only because I have not come upon an argument of late that persuades me that an essential/objective good does in fact exist. It always revolves around what I think I know about human morality in a No God world. Here and now.

They are construed by you to be good.

You have reached a conclusion.

He points out you reached this conclusion that they are good. Why you reached this decision DOES NOT MATTER in the context of IS THERE A CONTRADICTON IN A NIHILIST CONCLUDING THAT THESE THINGS ARE GOOD. Here you admit that you concluded that they were good. Of course we all know you are not sure, but as you say here, you conclude they are good. This is not what a nihilist CAN POSSIBLY do.

Once you have reached a conclusion that X is good, you are no longer a nihilist. And that is still the case even if you say you are not sure. Even if you qualify it with the idea that you might be wrong.

However: Convince me that what I think I know should instead be what you think you know; and I'm sure I'll feel less fractured and fragmented than I am now.

All you are basically arguing here [from my frame of mind] is that this is bullshit. I am determined to reject all arguments from others that do not align themselves with my own set of assumptions. And even though my own frame of mind here does leave me fractured and fragmented [with little or no comfort and consolation and oblivion right around the corner] it's all about me and my own psychological bent here.

Phyllo was pointing out that you think some things are good. You are not sure, but you think so. That means you are not a nihilist. One does not have to be 100% sure something is good to no longer be a nihilist. That's not psychology, that deduction from what you say in two different instances.

I think what Phyllo and I react to is that you contradict yourself. You never admit this. You never, as you put it, wobble.

phyllo wrote: No compromise ... no negotiation ... extreme/violent opposition to fascism, communism, Christianity or Islam are just as reasonable for a moral nihilist. And reasonable in a world based on dasein.

So why aren't you saying that??

All I can do is to come back to this:

1] Here and now someone thinks they know that some particular behavior is rational/virtuous "inside their head"2] Here and now someone thinks they know that this is not just based on the components of my own argument above3] Here and now someone feels confident instead they can demonstrate why all rational/virtuous men and women ought to think the same

About Communism or abortion or any other set of conflicting goods.

Then around and around and around we'll go.

But: this is something that I would expect to be the case in a No God world. In other words, given the manner in which I construe the actual existential interaction of the components of my own moral philosophy: nihilism.

Out in a particular context, out in a particular world.

And here you do not respond at all to the contradiction. YOu again put down the gauntlet for others as if your own behavior and beliefs cannot be the issue.

Of course God just adds another layer of complexity here. If God is said to be omniscient then He knows everything. So that must include knowing what each of us as individuals think we know about Him. So how could we not know only what He already knows that we will know?

Is it really important that God know everything? How would your life change, your behavior change, if you could find out, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that God was omniscient?

What is the worst thing that could happen to you, Iambiguous, if you were to spend the rest of your life trying to resolve the above?

As my ex-wife once pointed out, to the extent that you spend your life pondering seemingly unanswerable questions like this, is the extent that you are not out in the world actually living your life.

Is THIS the way that you see it also? One can seek answers to the hard problems while at the same time striving to find balance between the two.

Could one not do both? Ponder the questions and at the same time, live one's life? Have you ever stopped to ask yourself:

I think that one could but I also intuit that that would depend on the individual him/her -self. Some find meaning and joy in asking these questions albeit they may at times be a struggle. We all have our holy grail that we go in search of.

"What is at the bottom of it all? Where did this need to know "What all men ought to do" take root?

I am not so sure. Perhaps it took root in something which happened within our life that we are still learning to come to grips with, have not as yet resolved. Perhaps for some it comes from a human being who has both a moral and ethical heart and mind who cares about others and who's focus is "to do no harm", someone who sees and understands the inter-connectedness and the entanglement of us all. Perhaps it comes from someone who has an unquenchable thirst to seek and find the wisdom and truth of things.

I suppose that what is at the bottom of it is human evolution.

But here [once again] dasein kicks in. For any number of personal reasons each of us become more or less drawn to philosophy. And then for others their options become more and more depleted. They are less able to "actually live their life" out in the world with others. They sink down into themselves where questions of this sort are more likely to percolate.

I am not so sure that these people who as you say *sink down into themselves* will necessarily find their answers within like that but I may be wrong. I think many of the answers are to be find without, while looking, listening, reflecting on everything which they see.

Thus to ask what we all ought to do [on this thread] is still entangled in turn in the extent to which what we choose to do either is or is not only that which we ever could have chosen to do.

So, is this question about God being a puppeteer and we the puppets, that no matter what we chose, after much reflection and struggling, let us say after having chosen one intelligent and reasonable option out of five different ways we could have gone, our choice is not based on self-determination and freedom because we would have ultimately made that choice anyway?

Arcturus Descending wrote:What is more important to you? Resolving the above which I do not really see an answer for except by taking a leap into the darkness and choosing one or the other based on how we choose to see ourselves and the world around us ~~ since we cannot ever really be certain ~~ it is just like the God thingy. We can also decide to take the way of the agnostic and realize that perhaps in the final analysis it does not matter.

Did you mean to say *my* (as in your) own motivation, etc.?What is that *thick fog* - you standing in your own way?

You can only remember so much about the past,

This is true and I think partly because we do not always remember our past as it actually was. We like to fill in some gaps to suit our purpose or just to have no empty unresolved spaces.

and there are so many variables either beyond your understanding or control in the present, it's like aiming a dart at the bullseyes and being lucky if you are even able to hit the board.

True too but at the same time an intelligent, reflective and reasonable person will know how to maneuver his or her way through it - just as an expert at darts will be able to find that bulls-eye or at least come pretty close to it. It takes practice and discipline.

It's a wild ass guess in other words. Even the most introspective among us are sure to leave many, many of the most important parts out. Or, as they say, we are so entangled in our own point of point that we lack the objectivity that others are able bring to bear.

Well then, is that not why we have ILP? lol

Me: We either see ourselves as making our own choices, being self-determined, being free or striving for freedom (even though perhaps our sub-conscious is there at work which is also a part of us and working with us). We know this.

You: But how we see ourselves in a wholly determined universe is only as we were ever going to see oursleves.

This is true. If we see ourselves as being *fixed in time* in a manner of speaking in a wholly-determined universe, how could there possibly be any other way for us to see ourselves except as puppets who have no real choice or freedom - so then what does it matter how we live our life? "What all men ought to do" then becomes kind of a moot issue, no?

It seems to me that that belief system paves the way for one to disallow any sense of responsibility toward himself and his fellow creatures unless one chooses to see his life choices as having meaning and real truth to them.

If human consciousness [on or below the surface] is just more matter, then it will do only what matter does if in fact there are "immutable laws" of matter.

So just what is it that you are expecting consciousness to do if it is indeed some form of matter? What would it have to do with answering your question?

Last night I dreamed I went to the mailbox in a house I once lived in many years ago. I pulled out the mail and there was a letter from my wife. I was reading the letter. It was about our daughter.

Then when I woke up the whole "incident" just blew my fucking mind! How could my brain manufacture this letter "in my head" such that "in the moment" the "I" in the dream was reading it?!!

Dreams are part of a process. Your consciousness, for whatever reason you needed, had already been in the process of creating that letter for some time. It was just the right time for the *mailman* lol to deliver it.

In other words, as though it had not been a dream at all. "In the moment" in the dream I was the man reading the letter. How is that even possible?

You would probably have to answer this question yourself based on the content of the dream, which is really something that you yourself conjured up from a combination of your desires and needs and thoughts about your relationship with your wife and daughter and all of the materials used from your conscious waking life and the world around you which you see.

The world is filled with no ambiguity at all if what we think of as ambiguity [in this exchange] is only ever as it was ever going to be thought of.

That being the case, what would the next step for the philosopher be? What would his next question be?

Sure, but how am I ever going to come to grips with why I do the things that I do. Besides, these questions have always fascinated me going back to my uncle introducing me to science fiction. And I sure as shit wouldn't pursue them if they did not [still] fascinate me to no end.

You kind of remind me of the character, Quentin Clark, in Matthew Pearl's book, The Poe Shadow. You came to mind as I was reading it the other day. I intuitively felt that you and he had something in common.

“How can a bird that is born for joySit in a cage and sing?” ― William Blake

phyllo wrote:You can't even figure out what is reasonable or rational beyond some personal tastes and preferences. Right?

The left hand does not know what the right hand is doing. When he is discussing how we should interact, then compromise, negotiation and moderation are what he concludes are good. Why? because since we cannot know what is good, we should have these attitudes. When he is focused on the mind or we point out something in his behavior, then he will say - but I always say my ideas are also contraptions.

But the odd thing is: he does not seem to believe it himself. IOW if he think it is all contraptions he would never say C N and M are good. He would simply be this fragmented, confused person who cannot draw conclusions.

And further it does not make sense for a nihilist to conclude, however tentatively, that something is good. A nihilist does not believe there is a good or a bad and, yes, as you point out thinks there are only preferences.

And he claims not to even know his preferences, since he only seems to have an 'I'.

And yet, despite his not having an I, being a nihilist, being fragmented,

he manages to post the exact same thing for years.

How does a fragmented nihilist with no sense of consistent self manage to assert for years and years in a row that compromise, negotiation and moderation are better, iow more good, than other approaches to politics and human relations?

How does this broken being with no sense of a consistent self manage to write in exactly the same way, often with the same phrases in the same sequence with the same opinions, maintaining the same position for years, and without ever presenting specific doubts about any of his beliefs?

It's all fine and dandy to make disclaimers: I know this might be an existential contraption on my part. But never once does one of his various fragments actually express an option about how his beliefs might be bad, how his logic might be off, in specific. Never does he present the belief that moderation might be a problematic thing for people to have as a guideline, with a specific argument or example.

I know that regarding abortion, in the abstract, he can express being pulled towards differing positions - but even objectivists can react that way. Even objectivists can be torn on some or many issues.

But in relation to his own behavior and his own beliefs of what is good, he never reacts with 'on the other hand moderation might be a bad guideline because saying this to people could lead to X' or 'no you seem correct, when I, in that post you responded to, judged his position by not my own with specific bad consequences, I was not being consistant' or 'you're right a nihilist would not conclude, even tentatively that X is good.' This fragmented 'I' always manages to be amazed that anyone is questioning what he wrote as a possible contradiction with his major beliefs. He is always shocked that anyone might think that he is being hypocritical in specific communicative acts here. This fragmented 'I' always draws the same conclusion that his behavior here, in any specific example we bring up, is consistant with his philosophy. His fragments either all have the same evaluation of everything he does- God I wish my parts always did - or he is hiding hiding what thes other fragments think about, for example, moderation and compromise.

I think maybe its not so unnihilistic to say something and then not take responsibility for it and ignore when it is disproven and then say it again as if it was never even discussed upon, as if he just told you. No matter if a dude believes some thing is maybe good if he doesn't have heart to stick by it when some other dude says no to it, he's still a nilly no? You can say you have values but that doesn't make it so.

It is true that liberty is precious; so precious that it must be carefully rationed. ~ Владимир Ильич Ульянов Ленин

You gotta be compassionated. It succs to know nothing not even have the luck to know what you like, didn't it make of Socrate a happy dying camper? Life succs if you don't know how to choose from its goodies. All in a pile it looks grey but the colours only come out when you jump in and pick your cherries. Then they'll be red I can promise.

It is true that liberty is precious; so precious that it must be carefully rationed. ~ Владимир Ильич Ульянов Ленин

Every argument that you hear will fall into the category of "existential contraption". You're philosophy defines it that way.

Thus the futility of repeatedly asking people for an argument.

What are the characteristics of a "non-contraption"?

What is a "demonstration"?

Think about that.

Well, from my frame of mind, all arguments revolve around things that either do in fact exist or do not in fact exist.

Donald Trump is the president of the United States. That's an existential contraption in a very real sense. He does exist, the USA does exist, presidents are in fact elected in the Unitied States, Donald Trump was elected in November of 2016.

On the other hand, was he elected only because Putin and his henchmen in Russia helped to orchestrate it for him? And with his and his own henchmen's help?

Is that existential contraption in fact based in an objective truth?

Well, we'll see.

Then this part:

Sean Hannity thinks that Trump is doing great job in the White House. Rachel Maddow thinks that Trump is doing a terrible job. Two more existential contraptions in that they both exist and it can be demonsttrated how they feel about Trump.

Now, how would one go about demonstrating whether Trump is in fact doing a great job or a terrible job in the White House?

How might these subjective/subjunctive existential contraptions possibly be out of sync with that which can be established to exist objectively?

I think about this one way, others think about it differently.

All you are basically arguing here [from my frame of mind] is that this is bullshit.

phyllo wrote: All I'm basically arguing is that what you call "more reasonable" is in fact not "more reasonable" than something else within the context of nihilism. It's just that one thing makes you feel better than something else. Why call it "reasonable"?

You can't even figure out what is reasonable or rational beyond some personal tastes and preferences. Right?

Nihilism as I understand it revolves around the assumption that in a No God world, mere mortals don't have access to a font able to reconcile or to resolve conflicting goods. But that doesn't make the conflicts go away. If nihilists choose to live with and interact among others, they too will eventually find themselves in situations where the others will expect them say "good" or "bad".

And, as with others, they can think the situation through to the best of their ability; and then come down one way rather than another. But nihilists as I understand them recognize that had they experienced very different lives and/or construed the situation given very different set of assumptions, they might come down in a very different way. And that sans God there does not appear to be an argument available that all rational and virtuous men and women are obligated to embody.

What I am arguing is that "here and now" I have not come upon an argument I deem reasonable enough to enable me to transcend dasein, conflicting goods and political economy as the most crucial variables when confronting moral and political confrontations.

And certainly not that such an argument doesn't exist.

He was like a man who wanted to change all; and could not; so burned with his impotence; and had only me, an infinitely small microcosm to convert or detest. John Fowles

phyllo wrote: That sounds like moderation is objectively good, negotiation is objectively good, and compromise is objectively good.

But you can't mean that because it contradicts your moral nihilism.

They are construed by me to be good only because I have not come upon an argument of late that persuades me that an essential/objective good does in fact exist. It always revolves around what I think I know about human morality in a No God world. Here and now.

They are construed by you to be good.

You have reached a conclusion.

He points out you reached this conclusion that they are good. Why you reached this decision DOES NOT MATTER in the context of IS THERE A CONTRADICTON IN A NIHILIST CONCLUDING THAT THESE THINGS ARE GOOD. Here you admit that you concluded that they were good. Of course we all know you are not sure, but as you say here, you conclude they are good. This is not what a nihilist CAN POSSIBLY do.

Once you have reached a conclusion that X is good, you are no longer a nihilist. And that is still the case even if you say you are not sure. Even if you qualify it with the idea that you might be wrong.

To me this is no different from coming to the conclusion that Judge Brett Kavenaugh either ought or not not be to confimed as a Supreme Court Justice.

You can come to a particular conclusion here because you believe it is the most rational conclusion that can be reached. Or you can be for or against it recognizing that your conclusion is just a political contraption that, given the life that you have lived and the extent to which you have thought about it, seems most reasonable to you here and now.

Then it comes down to the extent to which, given your current set of circumstances, others expect you [or even pressure you] to take a stand. Their own for example.

Or you may not give a damn about it one way or the other. Then others can argue about whether, in using the tools of philosophy, rational men and women are oblgated to give a damn.

A conclusion here is either predicated on 1] an objectivist frame of mind or 2] on a pragmatic leap of faith embedded in moderation, negotiation and compromise or 3] is deemed to be of no importance to someone. In any event, dasein, conflicting goods and political economy don't go away.

Karpel Tunnel wrote: Phyllo was pointing out that you think some things are good. You are not sure, but you think so. That means you are not a nihilist. One does not have to be 100% sure something is good to no longer be a nihilist. That's not psychology, that deduction from what you say in two different instances.

Here we get down to defining/describing precisely what it means to be a nihilist. But I prefer to describe myself as a moral nihilist. I'm not arguing that meaning derived from mathematics or the laws of nature or empirical fact or the rules of language is subjective. After all, here, where does nihilism end and solipsism begin? Or, for that matter, determinism.

For me the distinction always revolves around what we think we know is true in our head, and what we are able to demonstrate to others is true for all rational men and women.

Besides, over and again I point out that my own arguments here are no less existential contraptions. There may well be an objective morality that I am just not privy to here and now.

And psychological defense mechanisms are recognized by many as fundamental in understanding human interactions.

Karpel Tunnel wrote: I think what Phyllo and I react to is that you contradict yourself. You never admit this. You never, as you put it, wobble.

We need to take accusations of this sort out into the world of actual conflicting goods. For example, where are my contradictions in reacting to Phyllo reacting to Communism?

phyllo wrote: No compromise ... no negotiation ... extreme/violent opposition to fascism, communism, Christianity or Islam are just as reasonable for a moral nihilist. And reasonable in a world based on dasein.

So why aren't you saying that??

All I can do is to come back to this:

1] Here and now someone thinks they know that some particular behavior is rational/virtuous "inside their head"2] Here and now someone thinks they know that this is not just based on the components of my own argument above3] Here and now someone feels confident instead they can demonstrate why all rational/virtuous men and women ought to think the same

About Communism or abortion or any other set of conflicting goods.

Then around and around and around we'll go.

But: this is something that I would expect to be the case in a No God world. In other words, given the manner in which I construe the actual existential interaction of the components of my own moral philosophy: nihilism.

Out in a particular context, out in a particular world.

Karpel Tunnel wrote: And here you do not respond at all to the contradiction. YOu again put down the gauntlet for others as if your own behavior and beliefs cannot be the issue.

The contradiction relating to what particular argument that I make pertaining to what particular behaviors in conflict out in the world.

Whether one embraces "no compromise ... no negotiation ... [or] extreme/violent opposition to fascism, communism, Christianity or Islam" they are deemed "just as reasonable for [any particular] moral nihilist. And reasonable in a world based on dasein."

Only in pointing this out I can't exclude my own argument here. It may well be possible that this is wrong...that, in fact, it can be determined deontologically how all rational and virtuous men and women are obligation to react to these things.

Or, once again, I am failing to grasp your point here.

He was like a man who wanted to change all; and could not; so burned with his impotence; and had only me, an infinitely small microcosm to convert or detest. John Fowles